A valley green and interlaced with flowers, |
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Bright with the vernal sun and April showers, |
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Was consecrate to their fond youthful love; — |
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And, while their gentle flocks around them fed, |
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Their's was the talk of Love untutored;— |
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And oft her beauty would he praise in song, |
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In strains as soothing as the tender dove; — |
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For sweeter measures never swept along |
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Th'Ennean bright- enamelled plains, ere Dis |
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Bore Ceres' offspring to his bower of bliss: — |
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Oh!happy lovers — pure and undefiled — |
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With hearts unsullied — thoughts to heaven allied; |
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And bosoms like to some sweet scented stream, |
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Around whose banks the roses fondly blooj, |
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(Tho' for a season — such is Beauty's doom!) |
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And bright shapes — such as youthful Poets dream, |
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There gladly dance, and feed the waves with showers |
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Of budding gems, and ordour-breathing flowers! — |
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Oh! had your lot been, haply, cast among |
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The gay tricked bevies ofthe city's throng, |
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Ye might have followed, with bedazzled eyes, |
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The lures outspread by Vice within her halls, |
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Full teeming with low crouching votaries; |
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Ye might have battened in the sensual stalls, |
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Where vilde Indulgnce — all ashamedhg — hies. — |
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Out on the erimes and sins of Capitals! |
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For in their wilderness all silent stalks |
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Gaunt wolfish care — and red- eyed Hatred walks |
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And Anger burns, and fevered Envy toils |
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To heap upon her overteeming fane |
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Fresh fathered plunder, and the gory spoils |
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Of white- robed Innocence, and Virtue slain; |
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And crested Pride hath in loud mockery trod, |
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Aping the semblance of a mighty God; |
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And beautous Honor panic- stricken fled; |
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While boldly followeth the minion Shame, |
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Usurper base of Modesty long dead, |
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And tromping forth its foul degraded name! |
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But for my simple lover they are gone! — |
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That valley now is mute — and desolate; |
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No sound is heard of pipe by shepherd blown — |
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No lightly carolled — joyous songs prevail — |
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Save when the eve- consenting nightingale |
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Gives a sweet requiem to their early fate! — |
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Far in the shady dell there lies a mound |
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Laved by a stream — and bright with flowers around |
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And there the Rustics made their earlygrave! — |
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Desease came o'er the youth — and his hot blood |
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In fiery eddies boiled — until he stood |
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A victim marked by Death's relentless hand — |
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And then he fell — whom neither art could save |
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Nor medicinal herb! — and she — the good — |
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And beautiful, his loss could not withstand: — |
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For what of joy could this dull world impart— |
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Pale grew her cheek — and broke her tender heart! |
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